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The question you might ask is ‘Why?’ Why, after two outstanding albums in Burn Your Fire For No Witness and My Woman, would Angel Olsen (or most likely her label), follow them up with such a patchy collection? Phases is a selection of unreleased demos, B-sides, rarities, and covers from various releases and in various […]

It’s with a Vaudevillian flourish that The Lemon Twigs’ Brothers Of Destruction EP shimmy’s into life, with all the panache and androgynous flirtation that the brothers Brian and Michal D’addario have previously displayed through their exuberant reimagining of retro power pop. The six tracks on this outing are the leftovers, the odds’n’sods, from 2016’s Do […]

After a twenty-year residency at the original DFA Studios, it turns out that an album no-one thought would happen, from the studio’s leading lights, will signal the end of an era now that the building has been sold on. Sure, DFA will continue in its new digs, but the West Village townhouse that James Murphy […]

Sometimes you just have to take an album title at face value. On his sixth record proper, and first in eleven years barring remixes and soundtracks, Keigo Oyamada couldn’t be more upfront in his intentions. Cornelius has been a quietly significant influencer with his subtly evolving musical meanderings for over two decades now, early on earning […]

The last time we had the pleasure of the company of this multi-instrumental, all-singing all-grooving hydra it was as night fell over Dunlaoire’s Beatyard festival in 2016. George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic’s blend of funk, soul, pop, hip-hop and all-out metal was well-served by the balmy sea air and festival atmosphere on that occasion, but […]

Back in 1971, The Band rumbled out of rock history with a triumphant swansong during which Robbie Robertson skewered his, Rick Danko’s and Richard Manuel’s ramshackle attempt at an old standard with a shake of a the head and a grin to the interviewer: “It’s not like it used to be.” The original line-up then […]

Bruce Springsteen has always managed to straddle that line between superstar and man in the street with more success than most in his class; a boy done good who can do no wrong. More than once tonight he brings to mind Joe Strummer – a spokesman for the everyman, just a folk hero with an […]

Wire seem at pains to distance Nocturnal Koreans from its eponymous 2015 predecessor. Wire was fantastic; a band firing on all creative cylinders and a signal that their best work was nowhere near over – and this is the band who released Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154 in three shorts bursts at the beginning […]

Muse came with but one intention – to conquer; to slay all in their path. They proved that on the evening before they played Dublin’s 3Arena when they took on Cabinteely XI in Kilbogget Park, with the Chris Wolstenholme-led Muse football team beating the local side by a marginal 9-8. “We will be victorious” they […]

How can you fail when you have ‘Suspect Device’ in your arsenal? How can you fail when you have ‘Alternative Ulster’, when you have ‘Wasted Life’, when you have ‘At The Edge’? The answer is you can’t. Stiff Little Fingers could walk these songs through a gig in their sleep and still leave a blitzed […]

From another mouth, he’s right, it would sound like bullshit, but when Johnny Marr tells us that this is the gig they’ve been most looking forward to on this tour you take him at face value. And at certain points of tonight’s set – particularly those that take us back to Marr’s ‘80s band – […]

If any band were going to miss a scheduled start time due to a backstage discussion about past members of Jefferson Starship, then Yo La Tengo fit the profile. Now fourteen albums into a thirty year career, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew have proven one of the more musically literate bands of their […]

Womens Christmas aren’t short of modesty when it comes to their songs. Their first EP was titled Tremendous, and the ensuing debut album, Too Rich For Our Blood, lived up to that prophetic moniker. Sleater Kinney’s triumphant Vicar Street show in March was the trio’s previous warm-up slot, but things are more condensed tonight, with […]

It’s just not in Doug Martsch’s nature to do things on a small scale. On their eighth album, and their first since 2009’s There Is No Enemy, Built To Spill announce their return with an aural big bang. A big, wavering guitar chord just under a minute and a half into opener ‘All Our Songs’ […]